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August 31, 2005
Total Security
I’d noticed that the British seem to be rather obsessed with security. Today I’ve found that the problem is much more pervasive than I had first thought. My on-line BT and HSBC accounts are apparently so secure that not even I, the account holder, can get into them. Helps me sleep better at night.
BT
To order broadband and have the equipment delivered to someplace I’ll actually be (i.e., my office rather than my flat) I need to provide my account number. “No problem!” I naively think, I’ll just look up the number on the statement they just sent me, type it in and I’m on my way. Wrong. Apparently the account number isn’t merely the eight digits shown on and identified as my account number by the statement. There are also two letters that are expected to proceed the digits. No such two letters are to be found anywhere on the documentation sent to me by BT.
Called customer service, navigated through three levels of menus, was offered a chance to get a call back in half an hour (yeh, I’ve got that kinda time), waited about five minutes and talked to a representative. He was able to supply the missing two letters instantly. Why didn’t they just send them to me? Anyway, now I’ve set up my on-line account and ordered broadband service (after having a brief fight with the subsystem for specifying the delivery address).
HSBC
To log in to your HSBC UK account, you need three pieces of information: your internet banking number, got that; your date of birth, got that; and three selected digits from a code sequence you set up when you opened the account, got that too. However, there was no joy on gaining access to my account. I’m fairly certain that I haven’t forgotten my security sequence. I’ve never done so yet and I don’t think I’m senile enough to start just yet. Did they enter my birth date MM/DD instead of DD/MM? No that doesn’t seem to be it. Hmm. Looks like more time I’ll have to waste on the ‘phone.
P. S. Lest it seem that I am unfairly bashing only British institutions, I’ll toss at least one brickbat back in the direction of my bank back in the states. Bank America has got to be one of the three largest financial institutions in the US. Surely its interests, and those of many of its account holders, range the world over. Why then when I went to set up a transfer to my UK account did I find the on-line external transfer set up so US centric. I have a sort code but BoA gives me no place to put it. Meanwhile, they’re asking for a routing code and I don’t have one.
Filed under Life in London.
Posted by eric at 09:56 AM | Comments (0)
Commuters’ Lament
There was apparently a bit of a problem on the line between Waterloo and Alton this morning; a broken down train in the vicinity of Aldershot, that’s the story the guard told anyway. The result was the delay or cancellation of most of the fast and semi-fast trains that I typically rely on. Those that did make it into Richmond were solid packed. Woe is me having to ride a stopper all the way into London. It really wasn’t that bad. In the end I got to Waterloo at nearly my usual time, call it about 35 minutes on the train, and though the 7:58 was full up by the time it left Putney, the A/C was in fine form and I’d been on more crowded trains, though not often.
Filed under Life in London.
Posted by eric at 07:05 AM | Comments (0)
August 29, 2005
Further Work on Friendship 7
It’s a bank holiday here today and I imagine that most of the population not laying about in the sun in the parks around here has upped sticks and headed down to Brighton. Me, I’ve been ready for a nice relaxing day. I’ve gotten in lots of good walks lately and been quite busy when not walking so I just hung about the flat catching up on things.
One such thing to catch up on is construction for my son’s next present, the Friendship 7 model. Shown here is its progress today through steps 3 (attachment of the hatch) through 9 (assembling the recovery compartment collar). Thus far, it’s been much easier working with the larger pieces of the 1/14th scale capsule than the tiny 1/96th scale one that goes with the launch vehicle model. So far the most difficult piece has been fitting the inner top sleeve for the recover compartment. It looks like my fine point black marker is inadequate to the task of blacking out the exposed edges on the top of the recovery compartment. I’ll have to pick up one with a more substantial point.
Filed under Harmless Fun, Scale Modeling and Paper Models.
Posted by eric at 05:22 PM | Comments (0)
August 28, 2005
Starting on the Friendship 7 Capsule
It’s time to get back to work on the next present for the offspring. This time I’m working on the larger scale model of just the capsule from John Glenn’s Friendship 7. Completed steps 1 and 2 this afternoon; cut out the basic capsule, cut out the ports for the periscope and observation window, and form the capsule’s cone.
So far, it’s much easier working with the larger pieces. The cone was comparitively easy to form and it’s large enough that holding one end of the seam in place while gluing the other was a trival matter. This made getting the edges aligned properly much simpler than I’ve found it while working with the small scale capsules that go with the launch vehical models.
Tomorrow I should be able to find enough time to get at least the hatch, periscope and observation window fitted. I think that the end product may be a bit large to safely post through international mail; it is, after all, only made of paper. Perhaps I should keep this one as a surprise when he shows up here. In the mean time I can put together another Mercury-Redstone or maybe a Gemini-Titan that I could send him.
Filed under Harmless Fun, Scale Modeling, Paper Models.
Posted by eric at 06:50 PM | Comments (0)
Walking Richmond and Kew
The London guide book I bought back in the states contains a few guided walks of areas “further afield” from central London, one of them being the Richmond and Kew area. As I live here now, I thought the least I could do to get to know the area better is to take the tourist path as laid out in the guide book. The first stops after getting out at Richmond station include Richmond Theater and The Green. As I now live right by both of these features, no further study was called for in my case.
The next stop is the only portion remaining of the old Richmond Castle from which the borough takes its name; the gateway (above). I’d only happened across the marker for this feature yesterday while walking back from Marks & Spencer. Henry VII, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I all made extensive use of Richmond Palace. Indeed, it’s where Elizabeth was when she died in 1603. The palace was hurriedly sold off for development under the Lord Protector and much of it was pulled down to make way for riverside estates. The gate is all that’s left. It’s now the entry to a courtyard of private residences.
The next leg of the tour goes down Old Place Ln. past The White Swan to the Thames Path. You go under the rail bridge and past the Richmond Lock which was operating as I walked past. As far as I can tell, it’s used at low tide though to avoid exactly what navigation hazard I’m not sure. I’ll have to find a bored looking lockkeeper one day and see if he’ll explain it to me. (Ah, or I could look on the web, see link or this one.)
The walk then continues along the Thames Path with the Old Deer Park on the right and the Thames on the left. Eventually the Old Deer Park morphs into Kew Gardens. This section is very quiet, or would be were it not for the occasional scrum of bicyclists weaving amongst the pedestrians. The opposite bank is, for the most part, wooded or parkland and one would hardly believe that one’s still in greater London.
After passing Kew Gardens, it’s down Kew Road to Kew Gardens Rd. and the tube/rail station. Five minutes on the district line train and I’m back in Richmond in time for a bit of lunch. About three miles of walking. A terrific day for a walk and a little more exercise wont hurt me a bit. (In fact I’ve been doing so much more walking that I think I must have shed five pounds or so since arriving. Eating a bit better too which probably doesn’t hurt much either.)
Filed under Life in London, Richmond, Kew, Thames Path.
Posted by eric at 06:32 PM | Comments (0)
August 27, 2005
Where Can I Buy What?
Today’s project was to explore some of the larger nearby concentrations of retail space. Based on the I have on hand, I’ve identified three areas of interest to the north-east and one to the south. Back in toward London we have near the rail station, an old exchange building converted into near the Putney train station, and something called the Retail Center not far from the Kew Gardens tube stop on the District Line. To the south there appears to be some substantial commercial resources in the form of and the Alderman Judge Mall but I didn’t get that far today.
Wandsworth
To get from Richmond to the Wandsworth Town rail stop, you’re either going to take the most local of local trains — stopping at North Sheen, Mortlake, Barnes and Putney prior to the desired stop — or you’re going to take a bus, which probably takes longer. After getting out at the Wandsworth Town stop and winding my way along Old York and Fairfield streets on my way to the Wandsworth High Street, passing the Wandsworth Municipal Center along the way, the Southside Mall was fairly easily identified by the signs for the multiplex therein.
Within I found the usual complement of mid-range clothing and shoe shops one expects in any mall in the western world. Of interest to us might be The Entertainer (a toy shop), iceland.co.uk (a somewhat different line on grocery stores), a vast Waitrose (groceries), a mid sized book shop called Books Etc., and a small childrens’ clothing shop called Mothercare. The usual Boots and Argos were also to be found as was the UK equivalent of a dollar store, Poundland. Oh, and one more shop that might turn out to be useful given the amount of walking I’ve been doing; Kwic Heel, cobblers.
Putney
Back on the train and one stop west to Putney (travel cards, very handy). About a five minute walk north along the Putney High Street, passing a couple of nice looking bakeries and a largish Sainsbury’s on Werter Road, brought me to the Putney Exchange Shopping Center. It’s a bit smaller than Southside but the shops are a bit more upscale. Some higher end cloths boutiques and a Cargo Home Shop (think Pier 1) are available here as is a vast Waitrose and Ottakar’s Books (two levels with a reasonably sized childrens’ book section. There’s also a toy shop and a small Gymboree that looks like a place to punt the toddler while you go and spend.
Outside the center proper, along Lacy Road, are a few more interesting shops. The Donnat’s toy shop in particular looks like it carries some more out of the ordinary kinds of kids fare.
Kew
Until today, my wanderings through the borough of Richmond hadn’t yet brought me as far as Kew. The first word that leaps to mind when one steps out of the small station at Kew Gardens is ‘twee’. The village of Kew really is just so. Every house, cottage and shop is just right.
A ten minute walk from the station (there’s no direct route, you’ve go to wind your way through town) and I found myself facing the first thing that looks remotely like an American shopping center; large block of big stores and an extensive parking area out front. Here I found Mothercare World, Gap and Gap Kids, TK Maxx (looks something like a TJ Maxx related company?), Next, Boots, and Marks & Spencer all in large format.
Given the long hoof one has to make from the station, it probably makes more sense to take the R68 bus which stops at the center itself.
Argos
After all that poking about though, my prime directive for today, namely purchasing the all important coffee maker, remained unfulfilled. I stopped in at the Argos in Richmond. Argos is a catalog store much like Best used to be but with less, read “no”, floor space spent on showing merchandise. You step up to one of the catalog tables and hunt up what your looking for. Really need it today? You can enter the catalog code on a small console at the table and it will immediately reply with how many of the selected item are on hand at this location. Write the catalog numbers of your selection along with quantity and then hobble over to the till counter and pay up. Then you mill about for a while as a couple with some sort of issues ties up the clerk at the collection point for ten minutes or so. At last your brand new coffee maker comes down the conveyer, your receipt is stamped and off you go; one appliance richer and £19.99 poorer.
The prices in the Argos catalog looked pretty reasonable and their product range broad. I think it’s like that I’ll be back here for occasional visits.
Filed under Life in London, Shopping, Wandsworth, Putney, Kew, Richmond, Argos.
Posted by eric at 04:33 PM | Comments (0)
August 26, 2005
Another Expedition to Tottenham Court Road
Needing a very particular gadget this afternoon, a 9-pin F-to-M gender changer, I once again made my way to Tottenham Court Road where all manner of electronica are to be found. (I managed to get there without incident this time.) While there are many electronics ware shops along this street, the vast majority focus on consumer electronics: cameras, cellular ‘phones, A/V and a few computer stores. Most of the merchandise in these stores is also vastly over priced. I did find a place that met my needs however.
Maplin Electronics on the east side of Tottenham Court Road, just south of Goodge Street (nearest Underground stop: Goodge Street Station) has all manner of things a system administrator might need in a crisis; 10/100base-TX patch cables, serial cables, fuses, naked D9 and D25s for knitting your own cabling, lots of ‘phone wire and fittings etc. The prices were high but not outrageous. It would still be cheaper to mail order most items, if you’ve got the time.
My secondary target, a respectable (read “not Krispy Kreme”) doughnut shop was less successful. A few years back Dunkin Doughnuts made a stab at a London presence but has apparently pulled out now.
Filed under Life in London.
Posted by eric at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)
Opening a UK Bank Account
Hooray! I’ve finally managed to open a bank account in the UK. If you haven’t tried to do this, then you might not understand why I’m making such a big deal about it. Where US banks seem to have realized that they’re not selling stability and trust (nobody trusts them anyhow) and they’re not competing for deposits, that they are instead gathering customers to whom they sell all manner of services and to whom they charge all manner of fees, UK banks are still stuck in the first half of the last century. It almost seems as though they go out of their way to discourage new customers.
To open an account, I needed my passport, work permit and a letter confirming my position, standing as well as US and UK addresses, from the grand pooh bah of the UK side of the joint venture for which I work. As he’s been out on holiday these last two weeks, that has been the most difficult requirement to put in order. But with that document in hand and a visit to the Strand office of HSBC Bank plc, it was a matter of a mere hour and a half(!) to open the account.
After telling my life story to the bank’s computer system and numerous toings and frowings between sales representatives and managers, a small deciduous forest was fed through the printer, half of the resulting printed pages immediately torn up, then I was handed a bundle of documents describing my new, completely empty account. Now to get some funds transferred in but as we’re about to embark on a bank holiday weekend, it’ll no doubt be some more days before I have anything that I can actually draw on.
Filed under Life in London, Relocating to London, and Banking.
Posted by eric at 04:51 PM | Comments (0)
August 24, 2005
Another Day Another Projector
There must be something not quite healthy with the electrical system in our conference room. Our NEC overhead multimedia projector died of some sort of power supply fault, taking a line fuse with it, almost as I arrived in London. Today, just as I walked in the door, the loaner unit I’d wire tied below the late NEC croaked and it look (and smells) like something similar. Any attempt to turn it on now will result in a pop followed by billowing smoke out the exhaust grill followed by a smell like used caps. I’d hoped to get the permanent replacement installed next week but I’m beginning to be a bit leery of putting anything on that circuit.
In other equipment woes, our Cisco PIX-501 is just not standing up to the strain any more. We have a script running every hour to clear out the NAT XLATE table but even so, at least once a day we have one or two people who can’t get to the greater internet for a half hour or so because the table is full. Spent some time today looking at replacement options. I’m leaning toward 515E if for no other reason than it has the most memory.
At least today is ending well. After polishing off my prefab dinner, I looked out the sitting room window to be confronted with yet another striking sunset. I don’t think have had the pleasure of living somewhere with such frequent interesting sky vistas since I was at school up in Blacksburg, VA.
Filed under London Assignment, Multimedia, Cisco and Firewall.
Posted by eric at 04:06 PM | Comments (0)
August 21, 2005
High Tide
The tide comes up the Thames at least as far as Richmond, most probably a few miles further still. I was fairly sure I’d seen the river appear to run backwards on some occasions and then there are the signs at parking areas near the river warning of sudden flooding, those were definitely a clue. If I had any doubts, they were erased today. I’d planned a loop walk down to the Thames Path at Richmond Bridge and then back up to the western corner of The Green. However, when I got to the river walk, the water was flush with the embankment and Water Lane was pretty convincingly flooded nearly cutting off the White Cross. Progress beyond the Cross was blocked and a lone BMW sat like an island in the parking area behind. Hope their insured.
Yesterday’s shopping expedition is paying off handsomely. It turns out that I’ve concocted a truly ideal manhattan this evening and I’m going to sit back and enjoy it.
Filed under Life in London.
Update: I’ve since learned that the tide runs as high as Teddington.
Posted by eric at 04:32 PM | Comments (0)
August 14, 2005
Marching up Whitehall
Recalling a line from one of my favorite movies, “So don’t threaten or dictate to us until you’re marching up Whitehall! And even then we won’t listen.” Well, I’m neither threatening nor dictating nor likely to start doing either but I did march up, and down, and around Whitehall today. Trafalgar Square naturally, hence the picture above. But what I really came to see is this (see right), The Cenotaph.
This bleak obelisk was erected as a memorial the dead of WWI. After WWII its mission, so to speak, was extended to cover the dead of the latest paroxysm of European violence. I expected it to be bigger, more imposing, but perhaps it’s better the way it is. It isn’t out of all reasonable scale like Nelson’s pillar, becoming a parody of itself. It sits quietly, subtly reminding every passer by of what getting through the first half of the 20th century cost civilization.
Filed under Life in London.
Posted by eric at 03:18 PM | Comments (0)
August 13, 2005
Walking Along the Thames
It was yet another fine, partly cloudy day here today. Where is all this rain and drizzle I was promised? After working for an hour or so on a space capsule model for the offspring, I went out for yet another walk along the Thames. I’m doing that a lot but in this area, it’s worth doing whenever you can. It really is quite nice. It’s no wonder Turner spent so much time around the area splashing paint about.
Today I went much further upstream along the Thames Path than I had done before; down to past Eel Pie Island. The path through most of this route runs through a wonderful quiet wild land called the Ham Riverside Lands. This area has a bit of interesting history, according to the plaque at the southern entry. It was dug for gravel up to the turn of the last century and then became a sort of dumping ground for rubble from WWII London, and there was no doubt plenty of that to go ‘round. The result is that there are all sorts of different micro soil zones that give rise to a great variety of plants and, consequently, birds and such that live in and on them.
A good stretch of the legs on a cool, quiet morning. I recommend it.
Filed under Life in London.
Posted by eric at 04:28 PM | Comments (0)
Back to Work on MA-109D
I promised my son before I left North Carolina that I’d send him a capsule for the MA-109D model the booster part of which is still with him. With the a bit of real leisure time before me this morning, I made a start at take two of building the model of John Glenn’s mercury capsule. (Take one went horribly wrong with the capsule assuming a weird elliptical shape; just looked all wrong.)
Above are all the parts cut out, which I accomplished late last night, and to the right we have all of the tubes formed aside from the LES column. It’s going much more smoothly this time.
I was unable to find anything quite like ordinary protein glue (i.e. Elmer’s) so I’m using some stuff called Copydex. It seems like some kind of latex emulsion. It works OK but starts setting very quickly. The initial placement of the surfaces is absolutely key. I’ve also noted that if you fiddle with the fit very much at all, the adhesive just kinda gives out.
Filed under Harmless Fun, Scale Modeling and Paper Models.
Posted by eric at 04:47 AM | Comments (0)
August 12, 2005
Dinner and a Drink
I’d hoped to be moving into more permanent quarters by today but the rental process overhear moves to its own slow beat and I’m back in my cramped hotel room for the night again. (One should not omit to mention the key advantage that at least here somebody prepares my breakfast every morning. Not sure what I’m going to do when that little benefit expires.)
Not the best of days. Made another failed bid for a local bank account only to find that I hadn’t jumped through quite enough hoops to satisfy any nearby bank manager. To open an account with HSBC, I’ll apparently have to get the CEO of the UK partner of the joint venture to sign a letter of introduction. Apparently they (HSBC) don’t know the joint venture though they’re actually one of our customers. Sigh.
The situation at NatWest is even grimmer. If I understand the rather incoherent statement of their policies provided by the clerk, I’ll need to have at least three months of utility or bank statements at my UK address before they’ll deign to grant me an account. Yeh, I got that kindda time to wait around. Oh, and that would be the address that will be impossible to get without a local bank account? Next please.
When I pointed out how sad and antiquated these policies were, the only response she could make was to the effect that she was just the messenger. I wonder what it’s like to have a job where you can only parrot policies and have no discretionary authority whatsoever. I don’t think I could stand it for very long myself.
Anyway, the day came out OK in the end as a couple of coworkers and I went out to a pub for some dinner and drinks. I finally rectified the fact that I’d had neither fish nor chip since landing in the UK back on July 31st along with that I had a pint of bitter that went down very nicely indeed.
It was a very nice place for dinner, the upstairs being all but vacant on a Friday night despite the crowd down in the bar. Its name temporarily escapes me. It’s at the corner of Russel and Catherine Streets near Covent Garden.
Today’s photo (above) I took while walking across Waterloo Bridge on my way to the station. There’s a lot of specialized lighting on the various buildings and bridges along the Thames. With a proper tripod, and my better camera, I could probably take some quite nice pictures from that spot.
Filed under Life in London.
Posted by eric at 06:49 PM | Comments (0)
August 11, 2005
A Visit to the Post Office
A busy day at work today with a mix of putting out new fires — I’m convinced that things are breaking down more frequently now that I’m here to fix them, catching up on the administrivia of changing offices, and some continuing work on some Macromedia Dreamweaver/Contribute based projects I’d been working on back in The States. I made my first trip to a post office today to mail out some as yet unpaid bills I shoved into my backpack as I was packing to leave Raleigh. The queue was fairly long but moved quickly and the clerk, behind his bank teller like plexiglas panel, was very helpful. The going rate for a letter from the U.K. to the U.S. is 47p which at current exchange rates is about ¢80 which is about what it takes to go the other way.
I just violated one useful bit of advice I read in "Living in London" which is to not go around constantly converting prices back into dollars; it won’t do you any good at all. It’ll just make you feel like you’re always paying too much for things (though in the case of postage, we appear to be close to parity). The advice is to just regard a pound as a pound and a dollar as a dollar and not keep trying to make one into the other. When I succeed in adopting this attitude, life is a little bit more relaxed.
Must say that the Post Offices here seem to be more diversivied than those in the states. Services provided at the Post Office here appear to insurance, office supplies in a small way, minor financial services and currency exchange. They also handle mail.
Filed under Life in London.
Posted by eric at 12:22 PM | Comments (0)
August 09, 2005
No Fear
Was discussing this morning with one of the founders of the London office how things are going with my relocation. Although there seems to be a general reticence to bring the topic up, largely I think to avoid granting the attackers any real mind share as opposed to any skittishness on the subject, the recent attacks figured in our conversation. In talking about it, I must say that I’ve noticed very little evidence in the day-to-day life of the average Londoner that expresses any fear resulting from the attacks. Certainly, there are the obvious signs of increased security, primarily the increased police presence and the fact that many of them are carrying automatic weapons. But there is no noticeable “climate of fear” here.
This is in marked contrast to the atmosphere I noticed in the D.C. area after the attacks of September the 11th. There and then, people were very much on edge. To be fair, those attacks were on a completely different scale and, in the Washington area, they were followed almost immediately by the bizarre and as yet unexplained anthrax attacks and then the nut case sniper. So, they can perhaps be forgiven for being a little jumpy for a while.
More importantly though, the U.S. had seen no significant assault on its soil since Pearl Harbor; very nearly six decades past. In contrast, Londoners have dealt with bombings all through the Northern Ireland “Troubles”. The older residents can also ember a time when their entire city was being erased block by block every night during the Second World War. As a consequence, the general attitude is to give ‘em two fingers and get on with life. Quite a laudable sentiment and one that I hope catches on across the pond.
I should imagine by now that London has fallen out of the headlines in the U.S. but should you hear any reports about things over here headed with comments like “A City on Edge” or “London in the Grip of Fear”, don’t believe a word of it.
Filed under Life in London.
Posted by eric at 04:45 PM | Comments (0)
August 08, 2005
Michael Cain, Noel Coward and Benny Hill in One Movie?
Yep, oddly enough all three of these personalities can be found in the same movie; it’s the original version of “The Italian Job” from 1969. (For another surprise Benny Hill appearance, check out “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, he’s the toy maker). I remember seeing bits of this movie on television a couple of years after it first came out. I remembered the darkly comic beginning and the odd, unsatisfying ending but virtually nothing in between (I was probably sent out of the room because of all the scantily clad women surrounding Michael Cain). Having seen it again now, I can say that while all of the principles do a fine job and while the car chase is indeed very well done, the more recent version is a better movie.
It’s pretty clear that not very much time, energy, thought, or money went into any aspect of the 1969 version other than the car chase. That part is perfectly executed and comes across very well. The rest of the film tends to keep coming unglued, threatening to bog down or go off on some irrelevancy. None of the three main players has more than a couple of scenes with any of the others so it almost seems like a couple of independent stories cut together.
Still, Noel Coward is lots of fun even if he’s ‘phoning it in and Michael Cain does the best he can with what he’s given which, as usual with him, is more that might be expected. Worth a look if only for them and the car chase. The ending still sucks though.
Filed under General and Movies.
Posted by eric at 04:38 PM | Comments (0)
August 07, 2005
Another Fine Day in Richmond
The weather continues to hold fine, clear, and not too warm. I’m sitting on a shaded bench on the south-east side of Richmond Green this afternoon watching the toddlers playing ball and the adults slowly burn in the sun. It’s been a very busy week and I’m quite enjoying the chance to relax and do nothing very much for a couple of days. I don’t think I’ve had a calm weekend since March and the pace is starting to wear a bit.
In any case, yesterday and today have been somewhat restorative. I’m fairly confident that we’ll find Richmond a commodious location the the price is a bit bruising; we’ll be stretching to our limit to afford this location I think.
One thing, it’s easy for the pedestrian around here on the week ends. The traffic all but stops on the High Street. I’m not sure if there’s something special going on in the Twickenham direction or if that’s just the direction that south-west London drains out of on a summer week end day but everybody seems to be trying to get down the A305 which runs along the Richmond High Street. From the Petersham direction comes the A307 and they meet at the roundabout at Richmond Bridge. Traffic backs up across the bridge, locks up the roundabout and everything piles up for a couple miles in either direction. A leisurely walk outpaces the cars quite handily. The backup starts at first light on Saturday and a little bit later on Sunday.
It really is quite bad. Yesterday, a colleague had to swing by to pick up some papers from me. It took him nearly an hour to get from his home in Kew, just a few miles away, to my hotel. All of this merely reinforces my plan not to get a car while I’m here.
Filed under Life in London.
Posted by eric at 09:40 AM | Comments (0)
August 06, 2005
Exploring Along the Thames
Had a very nice “full English breakfast”, consisting of toast, coffee, one egg over easy, ham, sausage and a fried tomato. The ham in particular was very good, must ask what kind they’re using. After breakfast, went out to explore parts of the Richmond area I hadn’t visited Tuesday or Wednesday. One of the estate agents mentioned a foot bridge at Richmond Lock so I walked north along the Thames Path and found a very substantial foot bridge over to the other bank. It was a fine morning for a walk and there were numerous others about with the same idea, though not as many as I might have thought.
On my way back to the High Street I took a turning into the Old Deer Park. This is a vast stretch of grass on which people play ball games, through frisbees and such. According to my map, it can be reached via a foot bridge the other end of which is not far from where we hope to be living by sometime next week. This looks like yet another fine asset of the Richmond Borough.
In the midst of the Deer Park is a Royal Observatory (see right) which apparently at one time housed, and may still for all I know at the moment, George III’s collection of time pieces and other intricate instruments; he quite liked complex gadgets like watches. There still exist a series of obelisks that were used for sighting transits of solstices as this observatory was tasked with setting local mean time prior to that job being given to the Greenwich observatory sometime later.
Thus fare I’ve continued to have very fine luck with the weather. There’s been no significant rain since Monday. In fact it has been for the most part bright and sunny but much cooler than home; low 70’s Fahrenheit.
Filed under Life in London.
Posted by eric at 04:32 PM | Comments (0)
August 05, 2005
Moving Day
Friday and it’s time to leave the very convenient company flat. We have a couple of other folks coming in to town today and more next week so I can’t hog it until my flat is available. Accordingly, I packed everything back up. Despite the fact that I haven’t added to my possessions materially since arriving, things aren’t going back into the same volume from which they came.
I took a couple of trips to waddle down to the office with all of the luggage and there it stayed parked all day in a big heap consisting of an enormous rolling bag, a garment bag, a backpack, and an attaché case full of books. There was no way I was going to schlep this whole lot across Waterloo Bridge and down to the station. I took a cab to Waterloo (a very nice cabby who worked pretty hard to get me and all my luggage as close to the station entrance as possible), the train to Richmond, and a cab from there to the hotel I’d found, the Riverside Hotel on Persham Rd. (a saturnine cabby who’d been having a slow day and hadn’t yet covered his gas money). I got checked in by about 8:00 PM and then shuffled out to find some grub.
Pausing to take a couple snaps of a fine sunset from Richmond Bridge (above) I stopped in at Strada as the most likely meal on the High Street. And very good it was indeed. Nice wine, a crisp caesar salad, and a tomato, pesto, and anchovy pizza of pretty high quality. The bill certainly added up though.
Filed under Life in London.
Posted by eric at 05:18 PM | Comments (0)
Exploring Tottenham Court Road
Things have been breaking down at the office at a furious pace since I’ve arrived. Our aging NEC 1060 LCD projector decided to pack up a couple of days ago. I’ve since, in amongst all the things I’ve got to get done to get established here, been working with one of our vendors to line up a replacement. In the mean time, they’ve loaned us an Epson EMP-703, now discontinued, to get by with. To make the whole thing work with our existing set up I need either some long extensions for our current A/V cabling or I need some hardware to mount the 703 more or less where the old NEC is now.
The day began with a singularly unsuccessful shopping expedition. I was trying to find a hardware store and get to Tottenham Court Road where great numbers of electronica stores are to be found. Stupidly, I left the office without my Mini A-Z and was too pig headed to hike back and get it. I thought I knew where Tottenham Court Road lay and I was more or less correct. Still, I passed south of it by a block or two and found myself nearly at Piccadilly Circus before I turned about. Didn’t find much in the way of a hardware store either.
This afternoon I had much better luck. I headed out in the correct direction encountering, almost immediately, a nice little hardware store in Holborn on Southampton Row named simply “The Tool Shop”. There I was able to find some substantial wire ties (cable ties locally) and the snips I’ll need to work with them. From there I managed to get directly to Tottenham Court Rd. where I did indeed find many a supplier of electronic gadgets and their associated paraphenalia. The main item for which I was searching was a long S-video extension. I had to balk at the prices though. The going rate, post haggling, for such cabling along Tottenham Court Rd. appears to come down to about £2/meter; an insane price for what is essentially ordinary insulated wire. This is clearly the sort of article for which I’ll have to plan ahead and mail order.
So, I now have the Epson EMP-703 on loan bundled below the late NEC using an absurd number of wire ties. The existing cabling just reaches the loaner unit. Looks silly but it works. I suppose it would look a bit sillier if I'd used duct tape but that would have left ugly residue when removed.
Filed under Life in London.
Posted by eric at 04:27 PM | Comments (0)
August 04, 2005
Just Standing Around
Just got back from another fine meal, this one from an Italian restaurant on the south-east corner of Bloomsbury Sq. We started with a simple but very tasty appetizer of avocados, tomatoes and mozzarella cheese in olive oil and I followed that up with pasta and carbonara sauce. All very good. The idea that England isn’t a place where you can get a really good meal must come from the dim and distant past as I’ve eaten very well since arriving, even when I haven’t been paying top dollar (or pound).
One curious difference I’ve been noticing here vs. American cities is the number of people who are apparently paid to just stand around. There are people standing on sidewalks holding out fliers, cards, or free news papers. There are people standing with sign boards pointing out new restaurants. There are safety green jacketed security guards standing in various doorways. I wonder how much these jobs pay?
Also standing around in large numbers today were the police. Today is two weeks since the last bombing attempt which followed two weeks to the day after the first. The security presence throughout the city, and particularly the transit system, has been very strong indeed today. They seem to have done a fine job collecting the people who conducted the attacks two weeks ago as well as practically everybody those guys knew but the possibility that there are other as yet unexposed cells is apparently keenly appreciated by the authorities.
Filed under Life in London.
Posted by eric at 04:22 PM | Comments (0)
August 03, 2005
One Day to Find a Home
Yeesh whadda day. I met the estate agent outside the Sloan Square tube station at 9:00 this morning. We viewed some fifteen properties in Kew, Richmond, Twickenham, Wimbledon, and Wandsworth. Many of them were very nice. I just don’t like the feel of modern blocks of flats but most of the properties we looked at were period conversions. A lot of them were quite interesting, though some of the, um, creative stairway solutions might be a bit tricky for a three year old to navigate. None the less, any of a half dozen would probably work fine for us.
The one I set my mind on though is in Richmond. The bad news: it’s a second floor walk up so there’re lots of stairs, it’s small with a kitchen reminiscent of the little ease, and it’s at the top of our price range. The good news: it’s right on Richmond Green. ‘Nuff said. The location couldn’t be better both for myself the commuter or the stay-at-home spouse or the toddler. I hope the offer is accepted.
Some interesting differences in how real estate is done here. One of the first thing one notices is that there is no exclusivity with listing agents. Landlords and owners will frequently list their properties with as many as three agents. While scheduling appointments to view a property is about the same, the agents try to be very punctual. (This was not our experience in the states when we sold our houes a few months ago.) Also, rather than just your buying agent showing a property, you always meet a selling/letting representative at the property. A final little difference I noticed involves keys. In the states, if you are showing a property through a real estate office, a key goes in a lock box and that goes on your door. Done. Here the keys could be anywhere, the selling/letting agent may have them or they might be left with a neighbor or who knows.
Right now I’m watching 2nd season “West Wing” on DVD while attempting to rehydrate. With all the walking around I did today — not only looking at properties but to and from Sloan Square, a walk I took to learn the city better — and having no more than a medium coke all day, I’m feeling almost critically dried out.
Filed under Life in London.
Posted by eric at 04:47 PM | Comments (0)
August 02, 2005
The Lay of the Land, Wimbledon
The next stop on my lightning tour of possible places to live is the Wimbledon area. The Wimbledon station area is much busier than Richmond's; it opens right into an enclosed mall, not quite so quaint or charming is it? Walking around the area I noticed many properties for sale but few for let. They all look fine but they all look the same. There doesn’t seem to be much topology around here either. I'm wondering if a Wimbledon resident, if translated to a random part of town, could possibly identify where he found himself.
I found nothing photo worthy in Wimbledon so you see none posted. I suppose that something in the Wimbledon area would be livable but my hopes are still in the Richmond/St. Margarets direction.
Filed under Life in London.
Update 8/3: After traveling about more of Wimbledon with the estate agent, I found I'd missed both Wimbledon village and the common, which is huge. Having these features pointed out to me makes the Wimbledon area much more attractive. The area close to the main station is all much of a muchness but the area around the village and bordering the common is better.
Posted by eric at 04:21 PM | Comments (0)
The Lay of the Land, Richmond
Following an attempt to get a local bank account — bit of a hang fire that, HSBC wants a very particular form of introductory letter from my employer — it was across the river to Waterloo station to pickup a one day travel card, £5.50 zones 1–4, and go explore some potential places to live. First stop, Richmond.
I happened to catch an express that stopped only once, at Clapham Junction, on the way to Richmond. Total journey time from Waterloo to Richmond was about sixteen minutes. Very good news if I can catch the expresses reliably. Looks like the shave ten to fifteen minutes off the stoppers.
At Richmond I went up from the platform and out of the station (oh look! another Starbuck's) and stumped about the immediate neighboorhood of the station. The station building itself looks 1930's vintage, have to look it up and see. One doesn't have to walk very far at all to be in amongst some nice blocks of townhouses or whatever they call them here. To get my bearings before doing serious exploration, I stopped in at the Starbuck's for some coffee and a look at the map I printed out while still back in the States. (Also, sitting by the door, ended up as a doorman for several ladies with baby carriages, prams locally I believe.)
I walked allong the High Street from abrest of the station for five minutes to get a human scale marker on my map. Then turned right toward "The Green" and found a nice green space in the midst of Richmond (see above). Sat on a bench there for a bit, took some pictures and then moved on across the bridge into St. Margarets. The view from the bridge (see right) is very nice up or down river. There are a few more buildings no doubt but other wise, with the willows swaying in the breeze and such, it looks quite like a turner as well it should; I understand that he painted no few of his famed landscapes in this area.
After wandering through St. Margarets, which has a very nice feel to it and would no doubt be a fine place to settle, it was back across the river to look over Richmond proper. (Had to stop at a chemist's to pay a usurous price for a small tube of sunscreen. Of the things I had anticipated needing in London, sunscreen is definitely down near the bottom but it's a very bright day and I'm spending a lot of it out in the sun.) The estate agent had noted many properties available up Mt. Ararat Rd. which runs up the hill behind the station. Up I walked, indeed seeing a number of possibles all minutes walk from the station. I then turned right, walked a bit, turn left and found my self heading up Richmond Hill Rd. The view (see left) from this neck of the woods convinced me that I'd probably wobbled a good distance out of my price range.
After a quick peek into Richmond Park, it was time to move on. Down Church Street to the station, back to Clappam Junction and from there down to Wimbledon and another area recommeded by my agent.
Filed under Life in London.
Posted by eric at 04:03 PM | Comments (0)
August 01, 2005
Who Says the English Can't Cook?
Oh yes, that was Jacques Chirac. Well, he’s wrong. Though I’ve had neither fish nor chip since my arrival, I’ve eaten pretty well. This afternoon we toddled out to lunch to the old Bank of England building where you’ll now find a nice pub/restaurant. I had an open faced sandwich of sautéed mushrooms, spinach and gruellier (sp?) cheese. Very, very tasty. Looking forward to other fine meals.
Filed under Life in London.
Posted by eric at 03:04 PM | Comments (0)
Obsessed With Security
Quite apart from all of the temporary measures in place after the Underground attacks, there seems to be a general obsession with security in a city with, compared to American standards, a paltry crime rate. Yards, lanes, and closes are gated as are many doors. There are innumerable alarms bolted on building exteriors. Private security guards are posted at many a door (there are two at Bush House and one across the street at Exxon-Mobil) and just about every inch of territory is scanned by one close circuit camera or another. [Note, the images from those cameras did come in awfully handy recently, didn’t they?] Who knows, maybe the crime rate is so low because of all these measures. Or maybe despite the low crime rate it’s all too easy to sell Londoners, like people everywhere, fear.
One oddity I noticed on the security front. The man who collects the local business’ cash in pops it in his armored van isn’t armored himself like he would be in the states. He wears no body armor but does wear a helmet and visor, presumably to keep from being coshed or maced. In the States it’s the other way round. Often no helmet but always body armor.
Filed under Life in London.
Posted by eric at 02:55 PM | Comments (0)
Fun With Electrics
It’s more than just the volts and hertz. Naturally the plugs are different over here as are the outlets they go into. However, they’re more different than you might imagine. I had a bit of difficulty getting the toaster to go this morning. Put the waffles — Sainsbury’s, American style &mdash into the toaster, pressed the lever down and it comes right backup. Hold it down, no toast. Hmmm. What’re these little toggles doing here on the outlet? Yep, each outlet is individually switched. The red has to show on the toggle for any current to go to the outlet. Throw the toggle, press the lever and pretty soon my waffles are sending up smoke signals. I’ve also noted that in kitchens and bathrooms, you will find no light switches in the rooms themselves but on the walls just outside. It makes a bit of sense but strikes me as being just a bit too paranoid. Does the extra 110 volts make it that much more dangerous to have an switch in a room where water is used? Why can you have outlets there then?
Filed under Life in London.
Posted by eric at 02:44 PM | Comments (0)
First Day on the Job
Monday and my first day at the London office. The recommended jet lag shock treatment seems to have worked; I don't feel all that out of sorts today. I feel pretty well rested. I turned in at 9:00 PM BST as advised and awoke about 6:00 AM feeling pretty good.
Aside from getting situated in the London office, my main task for today is to meet with an estate agent who’s to help find a place for me and the family to live for the next couple of years. Before I got here, I’d thought that setting up a meeting at Starbuck’s would be a good idea. Then I found that saying “at the Starbuck’s” doesn't narrow things down all that much. As it turns out, the estate agent still thought it a good plan and knew the area well enough to select a specific address.
We met there for about an hour to go over plans for house hunting and to look over some general information. She passed me an attaché stuffed with:
- A-Z Mini London [N.B. very useful]
- A-Z London Premier Map
- Collins 30 Miles Around London map
- London Underground Tube map
- National Rail Rail Services Around London & the South East map
- “Living in London: A Practical Guide”, The Junior League of London [I'd planned on buying this one anyway. Nice to have it for free though.]
- TimeOut London [A compendium of articles about London from TimeOut magazine]
- The London Baby Directory [A book about London for the under five set which includes the offspring.]
- The Department for Transport's “The Highway Code”
- Zagat Survey's “London Restaurants”
So, now I’ve got plenty to read and look over.
Filed under Life in London.
Posted by eric at 02:25 PM | Comments (0)